


Indelible

by Emma_Oz



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Misunderstandings, Soul Bond, soul mark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29715246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_Oz/pseuds/Emma_Oz
Summary: I am a sucker for a soul mark au and I wanted to play with the possibilities inherent in a soul mark that seems baffling and derogatory.I’m not a big fan of the whole ‘pussy = like a girl = weak’ thing that Johnny preaches, and I attempt to reclaim it here to mean ‘pussy = like a girl = sensible and reasonably cautious human being’.  Also, a warning that there is some (unendorsed) interpretation here of ‘pussy = demeaning term for genitals’. And a little (endorsed) for ‘pussy = cat’.
Relationships: Demetri/Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz
Comments: 17
Kudos: 40





	Indelible

Demetri had known what Eli’s soul mark was since they were kids. One time when Eli was getting cleaned up after an accident at a sleepover, his wrist band had come off with all the clothes his Mom had bundled up and taken off to wash.

‘Don’t worry. Everyone has accidents,’ she’d said to Eli, and she sounded a lot less impatient than she would in the same situation ten years later.

Demetri hadn’t meant to read it; he wasn’t a sociopath but he had just learned to read and Eli was right there, pulling on a spare set of Muppet pjs in the corner of the room. It must have been at the beginning of first grade, because he remembered he was wearing Elmo slippers and it was before Eli’s fourth facial operation.

For the longest time Demetri had thought Eli’s soul mate was a cat and then, suddenly, when he was twelve he realised what ‘Pussy’ meant.

Well, it meant a lot of embarrassing things that made his cheeks flush. But one thing it definitely meant was that Eli would never be his. That mark pretty much defined Eli as heterosexual, and that made Demetri’s own mark kind of sad and redundant.

So he said nothing about the ‘Eli’ on his wrist and concentrated on being Eli’s friend. They were binary brothers and Demetri was pretty confident he was the most important in Demetri’s life.

Also, it wasn’t as if Eli was one day going to meet a special someone and waltz off into the sunset with her. He was going to be a player, with one of those people branded with an obsession. Like Edison with ‘Invention’ or Mozart with ‘Music’, except way less classy. More like Hugh Hefner’s skeezy mark. It was kind of hard to imagine, but somehow Eli was going to become a party person.

In the meantime, the two of them made a good team. Demetri did the talking and Eli the doing. It had been that way since Kinder, when their teacher hadn’t been able to understand Eli even though he had his gromets by then.

He especially liked making Eli laugh, which happened rarely and almost always as the result of one of his extended, hyperbolic rants about his THEORIES about the Master or Trek continuity or how everyone associated with the Marvel movies was going to regret it. 

Occasionally he even did a routine about how they would one day become super popular. ‘You’ll be the homecoming king, Eli.’

‘What will I do with the crown?’ Eli pretended to muse.

Demetri spun an even more fantastic vision of their future social success, part of his ongoing campaign to define a future where they would be together. 

There was no need to mess up something going so well – not when Eli couldn’t reciprocate. Demetri did think about telling him sometimes at night, when he gripped his own wrist over the mark, but what was the point? Eli couldn’t reciprocate. He would want to, and he’d feel bad that he wasn’t Demetri’s one but he couldn’t be. All they could do was to be best friends and Demetri would have to try to be happy with it.

He’d tried to make this point one night when they were rewatching Return of the Jedi. ‘I don’t get why people think it is such a burden for Luke to a mark that says ‘Force’,’ he said tentatively.

Eli shrugged. ‘Stupid marks. They shouldn’t dictate people’s lives.’

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ Demetri reiterated. ‘I mean, just because someone has something on their wrist, it doesn’t mean they can’t have other loves. Passions. Friends, whatever.’

Eli shrugged. He never wanted to talk about bonds.

Demetri knew that he had not got through, but how could he say that he didn’t care what Eli’s mark was because he knew they were meant to be together. Despite it being literally written into Eli’s body that he wasn’t the one. He reached into the chocolate popcorn and filled his mouth to stop his words. 

Eli found his soul mark baffling. When he was a kid he had assumed he would fall in love with the Pink Panther from the cartoons. And then one day he made the terrible realisation.

It was absolutely typical that his mark was ridiculously embarrassing. It wasn’t enough that his face had a scar that was all that most people saw; it wasn’t enough that he was shunned by everyone except Demetri; no, he had to also have the most cheesy, ridiculous, overly macho mark. Like maybe James Bond could carry off the mark ‘Pussy’, but no one else.

So he decided to ignore it. It seemed like some kind of mistake, if not a cruel cosmic joke, and any future where he chased after girls that crudely was impossible to imagine. Frankly it was virtually possible to imagine chasing after even one girl. At his best moments, Eli could not imagine a future where he was a player; at his worst he thought he might wind up like one of those Incel guys, thinking he was entitled to women’s bodies and obsessed with them in the most gross and demeaning way.

He just made sure his wrist band was always secure and kept his head down. Until the fight in the school cafeteria, the first fight. And meeting Sensei Lawrence and becoming Hawk.

Sensei Lawrence used the word pussy more than anyone else he’d ever known. And OK, he was saying don’t be a pussy, but Miguel said he also talked about picking up hot babes, which was kind of like saying ‘be cool and be a player’.

If he could follow Sensei Lawrence’s exhortations, maybe he’d transform into the sort of person his soul mark said he should be. 

But it was very difficult to explain this to Demetri without revealing what his mark said. ‘We could be cool,’ he said, ‘Bad ass.’

‘We could be injured,’ Demetri retorted, ‘Attacked.’

‘But we could change,’ he argued. ‘Become the kind of guys that girls like.’

He’d hoped that might change Demetri’s mind, but it just seemed to irritate him further and in the end he’s left in an uncoordinated flounce.

But Eli was determined. This was an opportunity to make his mark a lot less disturbing. He didn’t want to be some kind of creeper with a realistic vibrating vagina in a can – those terms were self-contradictory and repulsive. He wanted to be a normal guy who could do things like double date with Demetri.

Putting his hair up was freeing. He felt cool in a way he had never been before and for the first time it seemed possible that he might grow into his mark.

He started small, talking to girls, something that had previously seemed as likely a flying to the moon. But he learned how to do flying kicks and when Moon smiled at him at the kegger, he pulled up the courage to kiss her.

Things were going well, except for Demetri. Demetri was always cautious and sensible. It was different to get him to understand how amazing this new world was. 

He couldn’t find the words to explain the coolness of the latest lesson as they walked home from school.

Demetri responded to his description of the most recent lesson with disbelief, ‘What do you mean, you learned how to do head butts? That sounds dangerous.’

‘Bad ass.’

‘And unnecessary.’

‘But cool.’

‘Have you suffered some kind of trauma? Related to banging your head, perhaps?’

Eli had to laugh at the funny face Demetri was making, but it was there was more and more tension between them. Eli was trying to pull him along on this new path that might lead to being a player, but Demetri stubbornly refused to embrace change. He kept trying to push him back into an old Eli-shaped box. 

They were like kids having a fight that never ended. He would shout ‘Hawk!’ and Demetri would respond by poking out his tongue and retorting ‘Eli!’. He would assert ‘cool guy who maybe gets girls (while definitely not calling them pussy)’ and Demetri would shout ‘nerd!’.

Then there was the brawl at school and Demetri kept running away from him. Demetri wouldn’t call him by his new name, and he couldn’t bear it. He didn’t want to go back to being scared all the time, better to be powerful even if it meant being alone. So he fought Demetri and wound up in the trophy cupboard. Then Demetri, being Demetri, freaked out about the possibility of the glass scarring him further and pulled him clear.

Every time he talked to Demetri it was the same. Demetri refused to change, but it was written on his skin that they weren’t inseparable. He had to be the kind of guy who played around and got a lot, the kind of guy who wasn’t attached to one person, no matter how much he might want to be.

Demetri wouldn’t listen to him at the party, and in frustration he tipped a glass of beer over his head. He never had the words to convince Demetri, but he knew how to tell him with actions.

Demetri had the words though and he used them to attack.

After that he stalked Demetri during the battle at the laser tag place. He intended to get that little pussy if it was the last thing he did. No matter how bad it felt, he was going to be the man his mark said he should be.

Things went from bad to worse. Sensei Lawrence was gone; Sensei Kreese talked about power but he made Hawk afraid. He channelled that energy to beat Kyler’s buddy, but he felt like he was falling.

Everything felt distant, like he was watching life through a foggy mirror, until he had a moment of clarity at the LaRusso house. He could not hurt Demetri again and he could not let anyone else hurt him, especially not the two goons holding him down.

‘Want a free go at this pussy?’ one of them called out to Hawk.

He snarled. He kicked the first and barrelled into the next.

Demetri straightened and looked at him with big eyes. Hawk laughed. Of course Demetri was a pussy, a prissy, rule following nerd who consistently pointed to the safest, most boring path. Demetri was the guy who was always right, whose moral compass pointed due north. Demetri was the one.

Suddenly he understood.

Demetri smiled at him hesitantly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Eli said. And when Demetri reached out, he clasped his hand for a moment before letting Demetri swing him over to sideswipe an opponent.

They raised their fists and stood side by side.

In movies people made big, passionate declarations and flung their bands aside to reveal to their partners that they were intended to be together. The happy couple would clasp hands, their marks aligning perfectly, and lean in for a clinch. Destiny FTW!

In Sensei LaRusso’s backyard, it all seemed a lot more complicated. Demetri was practically hyperventilating, partly because his arm hurt again and partly the overwhelming drama of it all. He struggled to get his band off and then nearly hit Eli in the face when he shoved his arm under his nose.

‘My God!’ Eli said. He reached out a hand to touch and then startled when a loud bang came from the house, followed by the familiar tinkle of broken glass. ‘They’re just cleaning up,’ he murmured.

Demetri could not have cared less. ‘Well?’ he said.

Eli blushed and began to fumble with his band. ‘It’s you,’ he said, which made no sense. ‘I mean, it doesn’t say your name, but…’

Demetri looked down. There had been no miraculous change to the mark.

‘It’s you,’ Eli repeated.

‘I’m not a girl,’ Demetri said, ‘And by the way…’

‘I know, it’s gross and offensive,’ Eli sighed. ‘But it is you.’

Demetri felt like crying. He could hear Bert and Nate bickering in the house, and feel the beat of his pulse in his ears.

‘It means, you know, like Sensei Lawrence says.’

‘Someone not bad ass?’

Eli was frustrated. ‘More… like someone sensible. Like, do you remember the fight at the school?’

Demetri had no idea where this was going. 

‘So as soon as it started everyone else jumped right in, but your first move was to run away.’

‘Actually my first move was to try to get a teacher to stop it.’

‘See?’ Eli said, moving to take Demetri’s hand. ‘Like a sensible grown up person. Like an adult.’

‘Like a pussy?’ Demetri was still not sure how to respond.

‘Like a person who makes good decisions.’

Demetri muttered, ‘You would not know a good decision if it bit you on the ass.’

‘Being here seems like a good idea,’ Eli said, ‘But generally… yeah… maybe I could do with some advice from a pussy.’

Demetri turned his wrist to the light. He didn’t want to let go of Eli. ‘You really think this is me?’

Eli stepped as close as he could and stood on his toes to give him a light, dry kiss. ‘You are my pussy,’ he said when he pulled back.

Demetri pulled a face. ‘Please never say it like that again.’

‘Mine, mine, mine,’ Eli replied, breathing in his neck.

‘You can say that bit,’ Demetri said, hugging him tighter.

‘My sensible Demetri.’

‘That’s probably OK.’

‘Gonna tell everyone you’re my p…’

Demetri shut him up by kissing him.

**Author's Note:**

> I have to make it absolutely clear that I do not endorse equating women with their genitals or women’s genitals with cowardice. And don’t mention the whole mess of ‘pussy whipping’. I have trained myself to imagine a cat whipping someone when I hear that phrase; the other implications are too depressingly misogynistic.


End file.
